The Harper's Quine

Chapter Six

It was cool and dim in the Greyfriars’ church.

In the side-chapel, candles flickered on the altar, their light leaping on the painted patterns on the walls, outlining cowl and rough woollen habit where the half-dozen friars stood waiting, catching the knots in Father Francis Govan’s girdle as the Superior stood bowing gravely to the mourners as they entered from the transept. It gleamed on the harper’s white hair combed down over his shoulders, on Ealasaidh beside him at the head of the bier, swordstraight, mouth clamped shut, and on the white tapes which bound the shroud about Bess Stewart’s knees and shoulders, so that she was reduced within her wrappings to the essence, neither male nor female, neither young nor old, but simply human.

Gil, pacing solemnly in behind Maistre Pierre in an atmosphere of mint and feverfew, was taken aback by the number of people already present. Still more were making their way through the church.

‘Are all present?’ asked Father Francis at length. ‘May we begin?’

‘Yes,’ said Ealasaidh.

‘No,’ said Gil in the same moment. ‘John Sempill. -‘

Ealasaidh drew a sharp breath, and was checked by a small movement of her brother’s hand. Feet sounded in the transept, and Sempill of Muirend entered the chapel swathed in black velvet, a felt hat with a jet-encrusted brim perched on his head. He dragged this off, glared round, then tramped forward to genuflect, glanced once at the bier, and stood aside. As he stared grimly at the harper from under his dishevelled thatch of sandy hair, his cousin and James Campbell of Glenstriven, also draped in black, followed him in and took up position beside him. The two gallowglasses tramped in, crossed themselves, and took up position either side of the entry like a guard of honour. Sempill nodded and gestured to the Superior, who, waiting a few heartbeats longer, opened his book and began.

‘De profundis clamavi ad to … Out of the deep have I called unto thee, 0 Lord …’

Gil looked round, counting heads. Aside from the mason and his men and the Sempill party, there was another man who looked like a harper, led by a shabby boy; a flamboyant fellow with a lute across his back; and more than a dozen townsfolk, among whom he recognized Nancy’s mother and aunt, and a man from the Provost’s household, presumably sent as a nicely judged courtesy. The Provost, as a Stewart, was related to the Earl of Lennox, and therefore at odds with the Sempills, and although Sempill of Muirend was a fellow landowner he had lost only an adulterous wife and was in no favour with anyone who mattered in the burgh, such as the Archbishop. Sending one’s steward in a black mantle was quite enough.

The brothers were chanting the Miserere. Beside him the mason hitched at his velvet gown, crushing the great bow of the black silk funeral favour tied on his arm. Gil glanced down at his own. Alys had tied it for him after she had seen to her father’s, standing in the paved yard with the sunshine bright on her bent head. Her hair, it occurred to him now, was the warm tawny colour of honey just run from the comb.

Movement by the entrance to the chapel made him look round, in time to see David Cunningham enter quietly, followed by his taciturn servant, genuflect, and move into a corner. Catching Gil’s eye he nodded briefly, and turned his attention to the service.

‘Requiem aeternam … Grant them rest eternal, 0 Lord …

The words unfolded, with their promises of eternal life, their reminders of judgement and the end times. Father Francis delivered a brief address in which he managed to suggest rather than state his hope that the deceased, having agreed to meet her husband, had repented of her adultery. Ealasaidh stirred restively, and was checked again.

The Mass drew to its end, and Father Francis stepped down from the altar to stand by the bier. Bowing to the shrouded corpse, he drew breath to address it, but Ealasaidh spoke first, her accent very strong.

‘Chust one thing, father. There iss people here who have not seen her. We should make it clear who it is we are burying.’

The Franciscan looked steadily at her for a moment, then bowed. She reached forward and tugged at the ribbons which tied the shroud at the crown of the unseen head, then folded back the linen to reveal the still face, softened now into the calm acceptance of the dead. Tenderly she smoothed at a lock of the dark hair with its dusting of silver threads.

‘There,’ she said, looking defiantly at John Sempill. ‘Now who else will say farewell to Bess Stewart?’

‘I will,’ he said, accepting the challenge. He stepped forward, and first made the Cross with his forefinger and then bent to leave a rather perfunctory kiss on the white brow. Ealasaidh, watching, smiled grimly as he turned back to his place.

‘Now you,’ she said to his cousin.

‘I can name her from here,’ said Philip Sempill, dismay in his tone.

‘Come and say farewell,’ she commanded. He would have objected, but John Sempill nudged him, and he came reluctantly to touch the corpse’s cheek with the back of his hand, then suddenly bent and kissed the cold lips. He turned away, his eyes glittering in the candlelight, and James Campbell stepped after him with a short and sonor ous prayer, the palm of his hand on the shrouded breastbone.

‘And you,’ said Ealasaidh to the two gallowglasses. They strode forward as one, to touch fearlessly, murmuring something in Ersche which sounded like a blessing, and turned away to move back down the chapel to their place.

Gil, from where he stood, had an excellent view of the way their faces changed. Astonishment was succeeded by staring fear, which gave way to horror. Turning his head to look where they did, Gil felt the hair stand up on his neck.

Out in the dim church, a white figure approached, gliding slowly between the pillars of the crossing, hazy and silent, its scale impossible to determine in the shadows. It came nearer, and paused. Others had seen it. Gil noticed the mason’s man Luke crossing his fingers against ill luck, and there were muttered exclamations of prayer or blessing. Then the figure moved, and spoke, and became human-sized.

‘Am I late? I’m so sorry.’

‘Euphemia!’ said John Sempill. ‘Come and say farewell to Bess, since we’re all laying hands on her.’

‘I hardly think that necessary; said Father Francis, regaining control of the situation. ‘Oremus …’

As the Latin words rolled over the corpse Euphemia moved gracefully through the screen gate into the chapel, her watchful Italian at her back. She had dearly failed to borrow a black mantle, for she was in full white mourning: a satin gown, without ornament, and a cloak fit for a Carmelite were garnished with an extensive veil of very fine gauze with spangles. Gil heard several people draw in their breath at the sight.

Under the strident keening of the women, as they followed the bier out into the kirkyard, the mason said quietly, ‘What do you make of that, maister lawyer?’

‘Interesting,’ said Gil. ‘That is five people who are either innocent or not affected by superstition.’

‘Would you have touched her, there before all the congregation? And run the risk of being accused of her death, if fresh blood appeared?’

‘I already have — and I know myself to be innocent.’ Gil eyed the back of John Sempill’s sandy head, visible beyond the shrouded form on the bier. ‘I am convinced that one is innocent too, at least in himself, though the Fury is equally convinced of his guilt.’

‘And she — the Fury — what is she screaming about now?’

‘It is an Ersche custom,’ Gil explained. ‘She and the others are addressing the dead, reproaching her for leaving us, probably listing all the people who will miss her. So I am told.’

‘It is a horrible noise. Has she mentioned the child?’

‘I would not know.’

‘No, but anyone who understands Ersche will,’ said the mason significantly. ‘Who are all these? I expected an empty church.’

Gil looked round again.

‘Two musicians at least. Neighbours. Serjeant Anderson — he’s worn that favour to a few funerals. A few others out of compliment to the harper, or to Sempill.’

The pallbearers, selected evenhandedly by Father Francis, halted before the open grave and lowered the bier. Sempill and his cousin stepped back immediately, glaring at the other two, and Euphemia Campbell moved forward to stand between them, leaning on John Sempill’s arm with a pretty solicitude as he glowered at the lutenist opposite him. The women fell silent, and four of the Franciscans took up the cords to lower Bess Stewart into her grave. Gil edged back from the sight.

‘I cannot bear the way they bend in the middle,’ he confessed in Maistre Pierre’s ear.

The mason turned a bright eye on him, but moved companionably to the edge of the group, saying, ‘There is a bite to eat after this at my house. You will come back, no? There may be something to be learned.’

‘I should be grateful.’ Gil looked over the heads. ‘But I think you have competition. Look yonder.’

James Campbell, in a pose comically mirroring the mason’s, was speaking low and sideways to the Official. Since Canon Cunningham’s attention was on Father Francis he received only a stiff nod in reply, but this seemed to satisfy him, for he moved casually off to speak to the Provost’s steward. Maistre Pierre said something inappropriate to the occasion, and set off in opposition as the singing ended and Father Francis pushed back his hood and turned to John Sempill with calm sympathy. At the grave’s foot, Philip Sempill stood, bare head bent, the light breeze ruffling his fair hair.

Gil remained where he was while the mason secured a word with both musicians and several neighbours. James Campbell seemed unaware of the situation until he sidled up to someone with whom the mason had already spoken. Gil was watching the resulting exchange with some amusement when his uncle spoke in his ear.

‘We may learn more in different courts.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said gratefully, thinking, God, the old man’s quick on the uptake.

The Official sniffed. ‘Mint and feverfew. Flea repellent?’

‘It has other uses, I’m told,’ Gil said, annoyed to hear himself defensive.

‘Aye, well. Is there anything I should raise in particular?’

‘Money. Who is the better for her death.’

‘Cui Bono. Aye. I cannot think it Sempill.’

‘Not directly,’ Gil agreed, watching Father Francis decline politely. ‘I cast Maggie in there this morning to see what she could put up. Best not to see her if you see her, sir.’

‘I take your point.’ The Official, with another hard look at the borrowed gown and favour, moved away to condole with John Sempill. Gil found Serjeant Anderson approaching in his blue gown of office.

‘A sad business, Maister Cunningham; he said conventionally.

‘Aye, indeed,’ agreed Gil.

‘And I hear you’ve no put her killer to the horn yet.’

‘We only found her yesterday morning,’ said Gil. ‘I am working on it.’

‘Aye,’ said the serjeant. ‘No doubt. And is that right, that there’s a bairn?’

‘What makes you ask?’ countered Gil.

‘Girzie Murray yonder’s first man spoke the Ersche. She was telling me what the women were saying, when they were caterwauling there.’

‘And what were they saying?’

‘Oh, the likes of, Who will stroke the small harp, who will tune the big harp, who will comfort the man-child. All very poetic, though you’d not think it to hear it sung,’ said Serjeant Anderson trenchantly. ‘So it seems there’s a bairn.’

‘So what have we learned today?’ asked the mason, strolling up the High Street in the late afternoon sun.

‘Little enough,’ admitted Gil. ‘I have another sighting of Davie and his girl, but no description. I have learned that Bess Stewart had property on Bute, and spoke Ersche, and that the gallowglass promised to see her home.’ He ticked the points off as he spoke. ‘We know that Sempill is after the baby. And I had a long word with that musician.’

‘Who was he?’

‘He calls himself Balthasar of Liege, but I suspect Leith is nearer it.’

The flamboyant man with the lute had approached Gil in the courtyard of the mason’s house. The long trestle table was laden with food, and maids hurried about with wicker dishes containing more food; avoiding a girl with a handful of empty beakers, the man had said, ‘Poor Bess. And poor Angus. She’s a great loss. Didn’t I see you at their lodgings last night? Had you known her long?’

‘I never met her,’ Gil said. ‘I found her dead.’

‘Stabbed, so Ealasaidh tells me. By the husband.’

‘There is no proof of that,’ Gil said firmly. ‘Tell me about Bess — how did you know her?’

‘I’ve known Angus for years — you meet folk, on the circuit. Then he turned up with this new singer. More than one of us envied him — I’d have been happy to lift her away from him,’ he admitted frankly, ‘but she’d none of any of us. Angus it was for her.’

‘I heard her sing, on May Day. She’d a bonnie voice.’

‘And a rare hand with the wee harp.’ The lutenist’s own hand shot out and seized a pasty from a passing tray. ‘And always a greeting and a friendly word for Angus’s friends, for all she was stolen away from her own castle. A good woman and a good musician, and few enough of either come from baronial stock. I saw her on the High Street on May Day evening,’ he said abruptly.

‘You don’t say?’ said Gil. ‘On May Day evening?’

‘I do. I’m in Glasgow for the dancing, see,’ he said, indicating the lute, ‘and I picked up enough to go drinking. So I was sizing up the howffs on the Bell o’ the Brae when she came up the hill with a good-looking young fellow. I’m about to say something tactless when I catch what they’re saying, and he’s addressing her as Mistress Bess, and it’s dear they know one another.’

‘They knew one another?’ Gil repeated.

‘By what I heard, aye. In Bute it was, from the sound of it.’

‘What language were they speaking?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, Ersche, of course.’ The lutenist eyed Gil. He had one blue eye and one brown, a most distracting attribute. ‘Are you thinking I don’t speak Ersche? You’re right, of course, but I can sing in it, and I understand it when I hear it. She knew his name, and she sounded like a woman speaking to a trusted servant.’

‘I see,’ said Gil, digesting this. ‘And then what? Did you speak to her?’

‘Aye, briefly, and she bade me goodnight, and told me where they were living, and went on up the brae, rattling away in Ersche with the young fellow. And when I went round there yesterday, looking for a crack with the three of them, this was the word that met me.’ He gestured largely round the yard and bit into the pasty. ‘What a waste.’

‘What a waste, indeed,’ said Maistre Pierre, pushing open the gate into St Mungo’s yard. ‘So the gallowglass knew her already. Should we speak to him again, think you?’

‘We must,’ said Gil. ‘And I wonder about going down to Bute.1

‘Is it far?’

‘You take a ship from Dumbarton, or maybe Irvine.’

‘I have contacts in Irvine,’ said the mason thoughtfully. ‘Alys can manage for a day or two without me.’

‘Alys can manage anything, I think,’ said Gil. ‘Did she organize that by herself this afternoon? As well as fetching the child and its nurse home.’

‘She did,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, completely failing to conceal his pride. ‘When I suggested it to her it was already in hand. And all without a cross word in the kitchen, so Catherine tells me, although Bridie Miller never came to help.’

‘Her mother is dead? Who was she?’

‘Yes, in ‘88, just before we came to Scotland, poor Marie. Who was she? She was the niece — well, he said she was his niece — of a parish priest, poor as a grasshopper in all but his learning, in a God-forsaken place inland from Nantes. Claimed to be of the same family as Peter Abelard, if you’ll believe it. He dropped dead an hour after he handed me the patron’s money for the new east window, so I married the girl and took her back to Nantes with me, and never regretted it in fifteen years.’

‘And just the one child?’

‘Just the one. She has run my household for four years now. I suppose I should find her a husband, if only to be rid of Robert Walkinshaw, whom she does not affect, but what would I do without her, Maister Cunningham?’

‘I find it extraordinary,’ said Gil, ‘that you and the demoiselle should have been in Glasgow since before I came home, and our paths never crossed. I’ve been mewed up in the Chanonry, I suppose, learning to be a notary, and seen little enough of the town.’

‘And before that you were in Paris, as we were. You were recalled after Stirling field?’

‘There was no more money,’ said Gil frankly. ‘I had studied long enough to determine — to graduate Bachelor of Laws — in ‘89, but there was no chance of a doctorate. And my father and both my brothers died on Sauchie moor, most of the land was forfeit, my mother needed things sorted out. I had to come home as soon as I was granted my degree.’

He was silent, recalling the scene in the Scots College when the news of the battle arrived, the strong young men weeping in the courtyard, and the unlikely sympathy of the English students who had experienced the same shock three years earlier when Welsh Henry took Bosworth field.

The Cunninghams were not the only family to have been affected, when the young Prince of Scotland and his advisers took up arms against his father, the third King James, and met on a moor near Stirling in a tiresome affray which ended in the mysterious death of the elder James. There had been some strange alliances and enmities forged in that battle and in the troubled weeks which followed it.

‘Well,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘we grow melancholy again. Come and look at this.’

He led Gil down the slope, past the thatch of the lodge, across the path that led to the crypt door, into the dump of trees where they had found Davie.

‘The boy was here, no?’ he said, gesturing. “The mark is still to be seen where he lay. Now look at this.’

He indicated the branch of a sturdy beech which leaned above the recovering grasses and green plants where the boy had huddled. The branch was perhaps chest-high to either of them, and on its western side, about three feet from the trunk, was a scraping bruise in the bark.

‘Interesting.’ Gil bent closer. The bark was damaged and split, and the powdery green stuff which coated trunk and branches had been rubbed away. ‘What has happened here?’

‘Has whoever struck the boy hit the branch as well?’

‘Why should one do that?’

‘By accident, naturally. On the way down, or on the back-swing. Or — what do golfers call it? — when the swing continues after you have hit the ball?’

‘We never thought of a golf-club as a weapon.’

‘Whatever he used, it is not here,’ said Maistre Pierre firmly, wiping his hands on his jerkin. ‘I will swear to that. We have searched every ell of this kirkyard, from the gates up yonder down to the Molendinar, and Luke spent this morning guddling in the burn itself.’

‘Very strange,’ said Gil. ‘I wish the boy would waken. Has Alys learned anything about the girl? If we could find her — ‘

‘Ah!’ The mason dug in his pouch. ‘Alys was much concerned with our guests, she had not time to speak, with having less help than she had depended on, but she gave me this.’ He unfolded a slip of paper. ‘Annie Thomson, in Maggie Bell’s ale-house at the Brigend,’ he read carefully, and showed it to Gil.

The writing was neat and accomplished, the spelling no wilder than Gil’s own. Admiring the economy of ‘elhus’, Gil commented, `That’s in the Gorbals — the Brigend. By the leper-house. I’ve heard of it.’

‘Well, even on the other side of the river they must drink,’ said the mason, putting the paper back in his pouch. ‘Come, let us leave this place, I have seen enough of it for now.’

‘I want to look at something else.’ Gil set off up the slope. ‘You know, if you found yourself a son-in-law who could move in with you, Alys would not have to go away.’

‘I thought of that. The trouble is, I would have to live with him too, and she and I would look for different qualities. It isn’t easy. You’ll find that yourself when you — ‘

‘If I am to be a priest,’ said Gil, the familiar chill knotting in his stomach, ‘I will never have to seek a son-in-law.’

‘The two are not necessarily separate. Many of those in the Church have children and acknowledge them. Look at Bishop Elphinstone in Aberdeen. His father did well by him, from all one hears.’

‘A vow is a vow,’ said Gil, ‘and a promise is a promise. Robert Elphinstone’s father was not yet priested when he was born — and by what my uncle says he would never have been allowed to marry the lady anyway. No, some are able to break their vows daily and still sleep at night, but I am not among them.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I want to look in the haw-bushes opposite the south door where the gallowglass left Bess Stewart waiting for her husband. These bushes.’

‘What do you hope to find?’

‘After two days, not a lot.’ Gil stepped into the ring of trees, looking round in the dappled, scented light. ‘Now if I was a woman waiting for someone I barely trusted …’

‘he weapon is not here,’ said Maistre Pierre doggedly, and sneezed.

‘No, I agree. Whoever struck the boy, wherever he has gone, he kept hold of the weapon. How tall was she?’

‘About so? A little more than.Alys?’

Gil measured off the level which Alys’s head had reached as she tied the fringed black silk on his arm before the funeral. Holding out his hand at that height, he turned from tree to tree, parting the young leaves and peering under them. Maistre Pierre did likewise at the other side of the circle, sneezing from time to time. Birds chirruped above their heads.

‘What are we looking for?’ the mason asked.

‘Any sign that she was here. There were hawthorn flowers in her headdress, but there are other haw-bushes. If we find nothing, it does not disprove Euan’s story, but …’ Gil paused, looking closer at the spray of may-blossom he was holding back. ‘Ah. Come and look at this.’

Maistre Pierre obeyed, with another explosive sneeze.

‘The smell of these flowers!’ he complained. ‘What have you here?’

‘There.’ Gil pointed. ‘A scrap of thread, look, on that thorn.’ Carefully he dislodged it. ‘The shade of green is certainly very like Ealasaidh’s plaid.’

The mason, covering his nose with one big hand, peered at the little twist of colour.

‘And this atomy,’ he said, wondering, ‘tells us she was here.’

Gil looked round.

‘She stood under this tree,’ he agreed, ‘waiting while Euan went into the kirk and her killer came out to meet her. May I have that paper? It would do to keep it safe.’ He folded the wisp of yarn close in Alys’s writing and stowed both carefully in his purse.

‘You know, it’s a strange thing,’ he added, looking round at the encircling trees. ‘We had evidence, and now we have more, that Bess was here. We have repeated sightings of Davie and whatever girl it was — they were here, they were there, they were yonder down the slope. But after all the people went in to Compline we have no sign of anyone else in the kirkyard. It’s as if whoever struck Davie was as invisible as his weapon.’

‘Perhaps it was the same person that stabbed Bess.’

‘No,’ said Gil regretfully. ‘We abandoned that hypothesis early, remember. The knife is not here — if it was the same person, then he still had the knife, so why use an invisible stick? We are missing something, Maistre Pierre.’

The mason, turning away, sneezed explosively,

‘Let us go away,’ he said plaintively. ‘I will not miss these confounded flowers. What do we do now? Go down to cross the river and question Annie Thomson?’

‘That, or go to my uncle’s house,’ said Gil, following him out of the kirkyard. ‘I set Maggie that keeps house for us to find out what she could, and my uncle accepted Sempill’s invitation this afternoon. There may be information. Or — wait. Do you speak Italian? I’ve only a little.’

‘Italian? I do. Oh, you think of the musician? Why not, indeed? We question him, and then we are next to your uncle’s house.’

‘My thought also. The lassie Thomson will keep, I hope.’

The mastiff had clearly been shut up for the afternoon, and was still raging fruitlessly in the darkness of her kennel as Gil and the mason crossed the courtyard of the Sempill house. When she stopped baying to draw breath they heard her claws scraping on the stout planks which contained her.

‘I hope that creature is securely chained,’ observed Maistre Pierre.

‘Sempill claims she is,’ Gil answered.

The house door was open, and within was a noisy disorganized bustle of servants shouting and hurrying about with plate and crocks from the hall. Euphemia’s stout companion backed out of a door with an armful of ill-folded linen, shouting, ‘And the same for your mother’s brat, Agnes Yuill!’

‘My mother!’ Another woman erupted after her into the screens passage, brandishing a bundle of wooden servingspoons. ‘I’ll tell ye, Mally Murray, what my mother says of yon yellow-headed strumpet! It’s no my place to dean blood off her fancy satin — ‘

Catching sight of their audience, she turned to bob a curtsy. ‘Your pardon, maisters,’ she said in more civil, tones, tucking the spoons out of sight behind her skirts. ‘What’s your pleasure? Are you here for the burial, for if so I’m feared you’re too late.’

‘It’s that lawyer,’ said Mistress Murray, her plump face suspicious. ‘If ye’re wanting a word with Euphemia, maister, it’s no possible, for she’s away to lie down. She’s had a busy day of it, what with one thing and another.’

‘No, I thank you,’ said Gil. ‘No need to disturb her if she’s in her bed. Would you ask Maister Sempill if we might get a word with the Italian musician?’

‘What, Anthony?’ said Mistress Murray. ‘You’ll no get much out of him. If he’s got ten words of Scots he’s no more.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Gil politely, ‘we would like a word with him.’

She stared at them, then sniffed and said, ‘Aye, Agnes. Away and tell the maister what they’re asking.’

‘Where is he?’

‘How should I know? I wish that friend of Marriott Kennedy’s had stayed longer. We could ha done with her.’ Mistress Murray hitched her armful of linen higher and set off purposefully for the door at the far end of the passage. Agnes shrugged, and ducked back into the hall, past two men carrying a bench.

After some time, during which the visitors had ample opportunity to study the temperament of the household, she returned, dragging the alarmed lutenist.

‘The maister says, what’s your will wi him, maisters?’ she reported. ‘You can talk in the yaird, he says, and no to be long, for he’s wanted to play for them up the stair.’

‘Agnes!’ said the Italian, twisting in her grasp. ‘Cosa succede?’

‘May we speak to you?’ said Gil. ‘I wish to ask you some questions.’

The mason translated, and the musician stopped squirming and gaped at him.

‘Che hai detto? Questione? Perche, messeri?’ He broke into a torrent of speech and gesture which appeared to deny all knowledge of anything.

Gil gestured at the fore-stair, and Agnes said robustly, ‘Away out and talk to them, man, and get out from underfoot.’ She pushed him forward and slammed the door behind him.

Antonio was coaxed down into the yard with some difficulty, and stood, apparently on the point of flight, looking from Gil to the mason and back. Feeling like a man baiting a suckling calf, Gil looked down at him and said, ‘You know that a woman was killed in the churchyard on May Day?’

The mason translated this, and the musician looked even more alarmed.

‘Non so niente! Niente, niente.’

‘He says he knows nothing,’ the mason translated.

Gil nodded. ‘I surmised that. Ask if he saw anything unusual when he came out of St Mungo’s.’

The dark gaze flicked from his face to the mason’s, a hint of — surprise? relief? — in the man’s expression.

‘San Mungo?’ It sounded like relief. ‘La cattedrale? No — vedevo niente insolito.’ He shook his head emphatically. Gil studied him, considering his next question.

‘You didn’t see the woman standing in the trees?’

Maistre Pierre translated this, and got a blank look and a surprised answer.

‘He says the lady was by the church, not in the trees,’ he reported.

‘By the church?’ repeated Gil. ‘What lady does he mean? Lady Euphemia was by the church, but — ‘

‘Si, si, Donna Eufemia, accanto a la cattedrale,’ agreed Antonio enthusiastically.

‘Did he see another lady in the trees?’

The answer was emphatic, and scarcely needed to be translated. There was no lady in the trees.

‘And he saw nothing suspicious? I thought he had his hand on his dagger.’ Gil demonstrated, and the small man tensed warily. Maistre Pierre translated, and there was a longer exchange.

“This is not satisfactory,’ the mason complained at length. ‘I cannot make sense of what he says. I ask about his knife. He says he drew because he thought he saw something — an uomo cattivo, a ladro — in the kirkyard. I say you have not mentioned such to me.’ He raised his eye brows, and Gil nodded in confirmation. They turned to study the lutenist, who was now holding the knife across his palm, looking at them with an ingratiating expression. The knife was a little one, with a narrow springy blade, much like the one James Campbell carried.

‘I don’t think he can tell us anything,’ said Gil. ‘It seems clear he saw nothing, like everyone else in the household.’

‘He seems afraid of something,’ the mason said.

‘He does, doesn’t he? Ask him what it is he’s afraid of.,

The small man ruffled like a fighting-cock, in the same way as the Italians Gil had known in Paris. Slamming the dagger back in its sheath he conveyed in indignant tones that Antonio Bragato feared nothing and no one. The mastiff, roused, barked again, and he flinched and glanced over his shoulder, then squared up to Gil again.

The door above them opened, and James Campbell said, ‘Antonio, vieni suonare. Dai! Oh, your pardon, maisters. Are you still questioning him?’

‘No, we’ve done,’ said Gil, and nodded to the lutenist, who hurried up the steps and past James Campbell without a backward glance. ‘Good of John to spare him for a quarter-hour.’

‘I think you were wasting your time. If a broken man knifed Bess under his nose,’ said James, ‘Antonio would see nothing. He’s a rare good lutenist, but that’s all I can say for him.’

He withdrew, slamming the door with finality. Gil and the mason looked at one another.

‘Let us go and enquire of your uncle,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I feel sure he will provide us something to drink.’

‘The man is certainly afraid,’ said Gil thoughtfully, moving towards the gate.

‘Did we ask the right questions?’ wondered the mason.

‘I keep asking myself that,’ Gil admitted, ‘but I think in this case we would have got no different answers. Niente, niente,’ he quoted, crossing Rottenrow.

‘But is he afraid,’ said Maistre Pierre, avoiding a pig which was chasing two hens, ‘because he is guilty, or because he knows who else is guilty?’

‘Or is he afraid of being suspected, or of casting suspicion?’ Gil countered, and opened his uncle’s front door.

Canon Cunningham was seated by the fire in the hall, reading as usual, but set his book aside and rose when he saw the guest. Gil, bowing, began to introduce the mason, but his uncle cut across that.

‘We have met more than once. Good evening, Maister Mason. I hope I see you well?’

‘Except for these confounded flowers,’ said the mason, sneezing again. ‘Good evening, sir.’

‘Gilbert, Maggie’s in the kitchen. Bid her fetch ale for our guest.’

‘No need, maister.’ Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen stairs, a tray in her hands. ‘I brought mine as well, seeing it was poured.’ She set the tray on a stool and began to draw others forward to the fire. ‘Maister Gil will be wanting to hear about Sempill’s idea of a funeral feast, I’ve no doubt.’

‘You listen too much, Maggie,’ said the Official.

‘That was a remarkable funeral; said Maistre Pierre, accepting a beaker of ale. ‘I had not witnessed that wailing over the dead before. A local custom, I hear.’

‘Aye,’ said David Cunningham grimly. ‘And they’d have been better to keep quiet. Someone in Sempill’s household understood fine what was said, and I was questioned about the bairn. Fortunately I could say I knew nothing.’

The gallowglass brothers are Erschemen,’ Gil pointed out.

‘And that Euphemia Campbell speaks their tongue,’ Maggie said. ‘I heard her, rattling away with one of them. Seems she speaks Italian and all, for I heard her with the wee dark lutenist. And Campbell of Glenstriven too.’ She nudged the mason with a plate of girdle-cakes. ‘Take a pancake, maister. My granny’s receipt.’

‘But did you learn anything, sir?’ Gil asked hopefully.

‘Not to say learn,’ the Canon said, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. ‘Elizabeth Stewart or Sempill’s tocher I think was in coin or kind, which simplifies that.’

‘ocher?’ queried the mason. ‘I would say her dot, her dowry. Is it equivalent in law?’

‘Her bride-portion, aye.’ Canon Cunningham nodded approvingly, as at a bright student, and continued, ‘It is clear that there is also property in Bute. Some of it was Mistress Stewart’s own outright, some of it was left her by her first husband — ‘

‘I never knew she was married before,’ said Maggie.

The Official glared at her and continued, ‘And some of it was the conjunct fee from her kin.’

‘Land given them jointly in respect of their marriage,’ Gil translated for Maistre Pierre, who nodded, absently taking another girdle-cake.

‘However,’ continued the Official, ‘it is not clear who now has control over these properties. Even if Mistress Stewart made a will, and disposed of nothing which it was not her right to dispose of, we have still to consider the questions of the bairn’s inheritance, the conjunct fee property, and the precise terms of her first man’s will.’

Gil, recognizing the tone of voice, settled back. Not for nothing did his uncle lecture at the College from time to time. Maggie was less patient.

‘So will that be written down somewhere?’ she demanded. ‘And will it tell us who put a knife into the poor woman?’

‘Not immediately,’ said Canon Cunningham, put off his stride. ‘But it may tell us who benefits from her death.’

‘The information may be in her box,’ said Gil. ‘I was on the point of opening it this morning when something else happened. It is at the harper’s lodging.’

‘At my lodging,’ corrected Maistre Pierre. ‘Alys sent Wattie for it.’

‘It must certainly be opened,’ agreed the Official. ‘There is of course the further point that, whoever finally benefits, and this is not immediately clear, the person who knifed Mistress Sempill may have been under the erroneous impression that he would be a beneficiary.’

There was a pause.

‘You mean he might not have been aware of the bairn’s existence,’ Gil said. ‘I agree, sir.’

‘It’s all mixter-maxter,’ complained Maggie. ‘You’ve made things worse, maister.’

‘And we still have no proof it was someone of that household,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘although I do not know who else it could be.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Maggie, ‘seeing I found this.’

She dug in the placket of her capacious skirt and produced, from whatever pocket lurked there, a bundle of grimy cloth. This she unfolded to reveal a limp object which she planted triumphantly on the stool in front of her in a waft of rotting cabbage smells. Maistre Pierre snatched the plate of girdle-cakes away and peered past it.

‘Bones of St Peter, what is it?’ he demanded.

‘The purse?’ said Gil.

Maggie nodded. ‘The purse.’

‘A purse,’ the Official corrected. ‘Where, Maggie?’

‘On the midden. That’s why it stinks a bit; she admitted, ‘it was on a heap of kale. Why throw away a perfectly good purse, maister, only because the strings is cut? Someone with a bad conscience pitched it there.’

‘Particularly since John Sempill can work leather,’ Gil observed. ‘He could mend it readily enough if it was his own.’

‘It’s empty; Maggie said regretfully.

‘Well; said the mason. ‘At last, something concrete.’

‘Anything else, Maggie?’ Gil asked.

‘A lot of gossip,’ she said. ‘Marriott Kennedy’s a terrible gossip, which is no more than you’d expect from a woman who keeps a kitchen like yon. A lot of gossip, and most of it not to the point.’ She cast her mind back. ‘She was telling me how long Mistress Campbell’s been visiting the house. Since the year of the siege at Dumbarton, she said, only it was the autumn. And she’d known Sempill well for a year or more before that.’

‘The siege was in ‘89,’ Maistre Pierre supplied.

‘Near three years, then,’ said Gil.

‘As Sempill’s mistress?’ asked Canon Cunningham.

‘So she had me understand. Her brother’s as bad, Marriott says. Aye out in the town after the servant lassies, for all he’s a married man. And it seems now Mistress Campbell’s no content with Sempill, for Marriott keeps finding the tags off someone else’s points in her chamber.’

‘Oh, aye?’ said the Official hopefully. ‘And whose might they be?’

‘That wee lutenist. The Italian.’

‘Well!’ said David Cunningham, in some pleasure. ‘Do you say so?’

‘Did you learn anything else?’ said Gil, before his uncle could begin to explore this topic. ‘Or find the plaid? The cross?’

‘I never got into her chamber,’ said Maggie apologetically, ‘though I tried, for that Mally Murray that calls herself her waiting-woman was fussing about seeing to her clothes. I never saw a sign of the plaid elsewhere in the house. There were other plaids in plenty, in any colour you can name, but not a blink of that green.’

She turned her head, listening.

‘Is that someone in my kitchen? Your pardon, maisters.’

She rose, setting down her ale, and made for the kitchen stairs. Gil prodded the purse, and teased out the strings which had hung it to its owner’s belt.

‘Cut,’ he said. ‘I wonder.’

‘It shows a connection with that household,’ Maistre Pierre observed.

‘If it is the dead woman’s purse,’ reminded the Official.

Maggie’s voice on the stair preceded her entry into the hall.

‘Come away up, ye daft laddie, and tell Maister Gil your message to his face.’

‘A message for me?’ Gil turned as she dragged the mason’s man Luke in by his wrist.

‘Here’s this laddie sent with a word for Maister Gil,’ she reported, ‘and trying to teach it to wee William, that can hardly remember his own name, rather than come up and disturb us.’

‘Bring him in then,’ said the Official.

‘And it’s for the maister too,’ mumbled Luke, trying to cling to the doorpost.

‘Then come in, Luke, since Maister Cunningham gives you leave,’ said his master, ‘and tell us what your word is.,

‘It’s from the mistress,’ said Luke, bobbing. ‘I was to find Maister Cunningham and yourself, and tell you, Bridie Miller’s no been seen since she went to the market this morning, and now they’ve picked her up dead in Blackfriars yard. Mistress Hamilton’s in a rare taking, and I’ve to come home after I’ve tellt you.’